USA Today reports the latest chapter in big-PR sleaze, this time
involving former CNBC tech correspondent Jim Goldman, who is now
a PR rep at Burson Marsteller.

According to USA Today reporters Jon Swartz and Byron Acohido,
Goldman tried to pitch USA Today on a
story about scandalous Google privacy violations in a
Google product called "Social Circle." When
Swartz and Acohido looked into the story, however, they found
that many of Goldman's claims were untrue.

Goldman was apparently working this anti-Google "whisper
campaign" in partnership with another Burson Marsteller
executive, former political columnist John Mercurio. Last week,
Mercurio wrote a long email to a blogger trying to persuade him
to write an Op-Ed about the same alleged Google privacy
violations. Mercurio offered to help the blogger, Chris Soghoian,
place the story in the Washington Post, Politico, The Hill, Roll Call, or the
Huffington Post--all read in Washington DC, where the government
crackdown on Google is proceeding. (Soghoian posted Mercurio's email here.)

Now, pitching "scandalous" stories about competitors that aren't
actually scandalous is a favorite sleazy PR technique. But the
fact that this one was coming from Burson Marsteller--a high-end
global communications firm--and former CNBC reporter Jim Goldman makes this one
noteworthy. Especially because it suggests that some of the
groundswell of anti-Google sentiment in Washington may have been
driven by secret paid attack-campaigns like this one.